Budget build motherboards

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That Abit is a good board! But what about the processor? Have you budgeted for the 965? Core Duo? Core Extreme?
That Abit will not work well with cheap memory, so budget for first tier memory, as well.
 
so yes or no? won't be getting it too soon anyways. is it a good starter or is there something better?
 
I think that you should think about how fast you want your machine. Consider all components that will work together. Ram memory, Cpu (P-4/Core 2 duo/ Quad/) Intel or AMD. Your new power supply. Cooling for your processor. Gaming or non gaming etc. Picking your mobo first is like buying a set of tires then going out to find a car that they will fit.
 
well it's gaming. i am hopefully going to get at least 2GB ram. CPU? that is going to have to wait. Intel probably. I have a case. it is this one

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811208019

fans aren't a problem i have plenty and a basic video card. i have three old old computers that parts can be scrapped from. i have a dvd burner and 160 GB harddrive also. so i could scrap together a working computer and then replace old stuff later in the future.
 
With the qualification about memory, it is a superb board. We rarely see one fail. ASUS has a similar problem with low grade memory, so ABIT is right up there.
We rate Abit, Gigabyte, and Asus among the top six boards.
 
Depends how cheap. You can run a Celeron D in it, those things are pretty cheap, $45.99 (and not very good for games). Or you could get a cheap Core2Duo which would be much better for gaming, but its $100 more than that Celeron D. Then of course there are the Pentium Ds, but at $119, their performance isn't worth the relatively small price difference below the C2D.
 
The Pentium Dual-Core should also be supported by your motherboard, and would be a far better choice compared to a Celeron D.
 
Yeh but the Pentium D costs almost 3x as much.

His motherboard supports Pentium 4, Celeron D, Pentium D, and Core2Duos.

For the RAM, you can run up to 1066mhz ddr2, so anything that speed or slower would be fine. Most RAM brands now offer a lifetime warranty so you can't go too wrong. Personally I'd recommend Crucial or Mushkin, but everyone has their favorites. The cheapest is probably something like Corsair Value RAM, which isn't bad.
 
I wasn't talking about the Pentium D. I was referring to the Pentium Dual-Core line, which is supported by the board. It's cheaper than the Pentium D yet runs cooler and overclocks easily to reach the performance of a more expensive Core 2 Duo part.
As for the new Celeron, avoid it. It's not a good one for games (Celerons have never been and this one is no exception) so I don't recommend it.
Lastly, this RAM is of superb quality and is highly recommended.
 
Rage_3K_Moiz said:
I wasn't talking about the Pentium D. I was referring to the Pentium Dual-Core line, which is supported by the board. It's cheaper than the Pentium D yet runs cooler and overclocks easily to reach the performance of a more expensive Core 2 Duo part..

My apologies, you are right.
 
No worries. You were probably confused by the Pentium moniker. People prefer to call it the Intel Dual-Core these days, to avoid confusion with the Pentium D. Why Intel decided to bring the name back is quite baffling. It just causes more confusion.
 
That Celeron is a very bad performer in games because of the low cache size, which games are very sensitive to.
 
The Pentium Dual Core line of processors are excellent value products for budget builds. Even for a low-end build, I think one should at least get the E2140.
The Pentium Dual Core processors are based on the Allendale core, the same core used for the entry-level Core 2 Duo's in the E4xxx series.
Don't get the Cedar Mill Celeron D, even if it's under $50. The single-core Celeron days are over.
 
There is a very helpful post on this forum about power supplies, although they poor mouth psu's from which we have had excellent luck.
We use a very large number of power supplies in our repair business. We cannot afford to have any come back, so we shoot for reliability and long life.
We like the almost unknown FSP Group, Sparkle, CoolMax, Fortron, Hiper, and Seasonic. Then the more expensive PCP&C, OCZ, and Corsair

But online retailers cannot afford to have their power supplies to come back either. For this reason, we like the www.directron.com because they have a very large variety of power supplies.... some of which are not posted above.

There is no way to save money by purchase of a cheap power supply.
 
what about graphics card? i have splinter cell double agent, far cry, and prey. splinter cell requires shader version 7.0.
 
I believe it is Shader Model 3.0 that is required for Double Agent. The 8600GT will be able to play those games maxed out quite comfortably.
 
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